HbD News: New Stars and Hurricanes Jerseys Announced

By JVDW

In HbD Breakdown

Jun 10th, 2013

10 Comments

I’m a little behind the game on this one, but I was traveling last week and then was planning a hockey-for-charity event that happened on Saturday, so it’s been a little bit crazy recently. While I was busy being busy, two teams announced new jerseys, the Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes. Both of them are vast improvements over their previous jerseys, but both of them had some pretty awful jerseys to begin with.

Carolina Hurricanes

First, let’s start with the ‘Canes. As I mentioned in the post about Dallas Stars’ leaked logo, the bar for off-season redesigns in the NHL had been set, and it had been set very low. Like Arnold in Terminator 2, the ‘Canes tore that bar apart with ease. At with the lighting in the promo picture above, it looks pretty bad ass. But proper photographic lighting (and a little Photoshopping) can hide all sorts of imperfections.

Very traditional, as it turns out. If you compare the Canadian national jerseys to these ‘Canes jerseys, well, they’re kind of similar. The piping is almost identical with the exceptions being the collars, a gap between the red and black stripes on the white jersey and red shoulders on the white jersey. How intentional of a rip-off this was is hard to say as it’s not like Canada had this sort of jersey piping trademarked for themselves. Teams that have similar three-stripe, two-colour piping on their jerseys include the Bruins, the Devils, the Canucks, the Oilers, just to name a few. And the Leafs share extremely similar piping (two white stripes) as well on the ‘Canes home reds. The comparison to the Canadian national team is only happening because they share exactly the same colour: red, white and black. If their colour base was green, for example, nobody would care. It’s unfortunate, but I think the ‘Canes white jerseys are more of a rip-off of the Devils’ white jerseys than Canada’s, as they’re pretty identical except with reds and black switched.

Overall, I love the jerseys and their clean, traditional aesthetic. They’re strong, sleek and will look great on the ice. And, as a bonus, they dropped their awful black alternate jerseys. If there was one thing I could change though, it would be the red shoulders on the white jersey. I don’t think they’re really necessary. But, I’m also generally biased against any shoulder patches like that.

‘Canes fans, or hockey jersey collectors, I’d be snapping this one up. Specifically, a #12 Staal in the home reds.

And that’s what’s the greatest thing about this jersey. The Stars, for all their past graphic design foibles (uterus, anyone?), will finally have something to wear that’s distinctive, classy and actually doesn’t look like it’s trying to copy basketball jerseys. AND THEY ALMOST F%#&ED IT ALL UP!

According to the Stars-centric blog Defending Big D, team ownership were looking at all sorts of colour schemes, including using blue, or a red-white-blue combination. Or the 30 teams in the NHL, 17 of them use blue in their jerseys, 12 of them use it as their primary jersey colour (13 if you count the Penguins’ third jerseys). 5 of those 17 teams also use a red-white-blue colour scheme. I don’t understand why it was even considered, or why it took Mike Modano to bring them to their senses.

From the afore-mentioned blog post: “Blue, especially the shade of blue they were considering, would have been very unique in the NHL and would have tied the franchise to the other sports teams in the Dallas area.” I’m guessing they meant a royal blue, like the Cowboys and the Mavericks? Or a royal blue like the Maple Leafs and Lightning and Canucks and Rangers and Oilers? Obviously, not THAT royal blue. #facepalm

But, luckily, with these jerseys straddle that line between a new look and an homage to the franchise overall. The green stays, and some nice simple piping brings back some clean traditional hockey-jersey aesthetics. The home greens remind me of the Blackhawks’ home reds, and that’s never a bad jersey to imitate.

Again, a huge improvement over their previous jerseys (which was easy), but again with coloured shoulder patches on the white jerseys! At least it’s a simple patch of colour, but like the ‘Canes jersey, not totally necessary.

not sure why Dallas would change the lines from home to away. One reason why I think the devils jerseys for instance are great. They are complete opposite of each other where as these are good but different, why? same goes for the canes. Why add black to the away one?

Changing the lines along the bottom of the jerseys on the homes and aways isn’t unprecedented. The Blackhawks, Red Wings, Kings, Wild, Canadiens, Predators, Rangers and Canucks all did it this past year, and there’s been much more in the past. For some jerseys, it just works better based on the colours being used.

Yeah, that’s why I love the Canucks brand so much as of now. Those colors balance more beautifully than the Red Wing’s logo. (Sorry Wingies, but you need a third jersey. Everything on your uniform is a bit old.)

[…] maybe?), and while the new one isn’t that much better…damn, at least they’re moving in the right direction with those new jerseys. Their new set is among the best in the league right now, bar none. […]